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I started smoking (at 14) to act and feel grown up. A mother trying to keep me "7 years old forever" was a difficult thing to deal with (when I took off downtown to high school the poor thing had an NB!). You do what you have to do.

....... If peer pressure is what gets some kids to start, why hasnít that peer pressure moved in the opposite direction to pressure peers to not start smoking......

Ever been in any kind of paramilitary education system? Changing tradition is very tough to do and may even be a form of suicide to try it.

I remember formal military dinners where lighting up a cigar was not only allowed but rather expected of members. Way back then, freshmen and sophomores in some units were required to chew tobacco while working Bonfire at TAMU. The classes before them did it and they were going to (have to) do it, too!

Now, that was the 80s (and it was pretty well known then of the dangers). I don't know how military education is now.....but I do know how it was back then.

Even living near a mass transit stop doesn't always negate the need to have a car to get around. In some areas, one still needs a car as mass transit doesn't blanket the local area very well. There are few places in this country where someone can get around solely using public transportation without ever needing a car. You can say, well just move to such a place. Easier said than done. For example, not everyone can afford to live someplace like NYC.

Haven't you noticed that elderly or disabled people still need to get around? Those who can't drive are dependent on those who own cars or those who operate shuttles. Should those people who drive shuttles, buses and cabs give up their livelihoods because you say driving is an addiction?

What do people who can't drive do? Not everyone has the reflexes needed to drive.

I started smoking when I was a teenager myself. Did I care that smoking was considered unhealthy? Did I think about addiction? No.

I was one of those kids who was left on the outside of the normal social circles, but when I found a group of kids who seemed not to care that I wasn't pretty or athletic or in other ways up to some standard of social acceptability, they smoked cigarettes and so I started to also, to be accepted, to be a part of something.

I don't think much has changed in those 40+ years. The kids who are rejected by the mainstream social groups are going to seek validation in other ways, and sometimes, that's with the smokers. People who smoke are also higher risk-takers than those who don't.

There are also the physical benefits. Nicotine makes your mind sharper. It makes you feel better. I no longer smoke, and I noticed the difference in mental acuity right away. Stephen King mentions it in his book On Writing. He was hit by a truck and hospitalized for long time during the writing of that book and quit smoking by necessity when he was laid up, and he noticed the difference when he began to write again.

I was puzzled when people would ask, after I quit smoking, if I felt better. Well, NO. What an odd question. I knew that in the long run it would be better for my health, but smoking made me feel better, not worse.

Quitting didn't make me feel better either, queen. I smoked for 55 years and quit because heart surgery was necessary to repair a CONGENITAL valve malfunction. I would have needed the surgery even if I had never smoked. Nevertheless, I didn't want to face the 20 minutes of coughing every morning with an 11 inch incision down the center of my chest.

I quit on Tuesday, November 2 2004 at 6:30 am. By the day of surgery in January of 2005, my cough had disappeared. I recovered nicely from the surgery.

Following that, I was required to smoke on-stage during a play but it was a brief scene and to quote a famous person, I didn't inhale. I didn't resume my former habit.

Since then, I had a bout with colon cancer. Linked to smoking? Can't say definitively, yes or no.

I do know that my COPD, which currently requires me to be on oxygen, is more than likely a result of my years of dependency on nicotine.

A couple of family members still smoke. I say nothing. I learned a long time ago that you only quit when you want to, not because somebody else wants you to.

To those I may have offended by smoking in your presence, I'm sorry. To those who insinuated themselves into my (smoking) presence so they could preach to me about the evils of second-hand smoke, I say...get over yourself.

Man is a risk taker at heart. Put the key into the ignition of your car, and attempt to drive across town, we're talking big time risks. At any intersection, someone could rear end you, come flying thru a red light and you're left a paraplegic, quadriplegic, facing painful issues for ever and ever or dead. Driving/owning a car is a very dangerous addiction common to millions, and they will all claim it's a necessity, even though there may be a mass transit stop 2 blocks away.

Here's the problem. Young teenager just happens to know of an uncle, grandfather, or great grandfather who smoked for decades with no ill effects. My father smoked for 50 years, quit at 66, and died at 96 with no respiratory issues whatsoever. How many of these teenagers have run into these miracle types and decided to take the risk.

We all have our addictions, each and every one of us, addictions we're too weak minded and lazy to quit. Smartphones come to mind, how many could quit that addiction over night? And then there's workaholics (workaholics and alcoholics wear the same clothes) who are so addicted to work. they're going to an early grave repeatedly working 70-80-90 hours a week. I work with a number of those suicidal workaholics!

For those that make their own cigarettes, we're looking at roughly $2-$2.25 a pack. I've been making my own for 17 years.

As for the woman, even with cancer, who sneaks smokes, endangering her health, let's look at a comparison: A man has been in 3 car accidents in his lifetime, has spent, over the years, many years in Rehab/Physical therapy and this risk taker simply can't quit his addiction to driving a car, He sees the gory photo's of near-fatal accidents in the paper, and like the smoker: I may lucky, it's not going to happen to me.

This will be a much better world when we equivocate addictions, or someone saying: But my addiction is much safer!

You have a point with the varied addictions people may have but using "driving" as an addiction doesn't work...at all....

Driving/transportation is a necessity for most Americans unless in an urban setting and even then possibly needed...

You can't equate driving with smoking and the risk/reward ratio isn't anywhere near as close as you or Gizmo make it out to be.

Smoking is absolute a form of risk taking behavior as is illicit drug use....driving unless driving recklessly is not a form of risk taking behavior...

I don't judge smokers but I too am baffled when I see a young person smoking today with all that is known about the dangers not to mention that at least in this country it is no longer "normal" behavior to be a smoker and smokers are ostracized in overt ways and legislated against in public and the workplace...

While many (not all ) people have "addictions" of one sort or another not all addictions are personally destructive like drugs, smoking, alchohol etc. Exercise, running, biking, meditation, reading can all be "addictions" but unless carried to ridiculous extremes "build up" a person instead of "tearing them down"

Growing up in an era in which virtually all adults smoked, in which too many adults thought it was cute and funny to see their kids light up and puff on cigarettes, itís amazing anyone didnít start smoking back then. But now that the real dangers of smoking are not only know, but are common knowledge, why do young people today start smoking? Every year I still see more and more young people take up smoking Iíve even seen young adults take up smoking so they had an excuse to leave work for frequent breaks since you canít smoke at work. My wife and I are 49 and we never smoked. We saw our parents struggle to quit and their health problems. We see her older sister struggling to buy a pack of cigarettes on her low hourly pay. I have relatives of the same generation as myself and despite seeing their chain smoking parents struggling, all four of their kids either smoke or chew tobacco. Even after their dad dies from his smoking none of them made an attempt to quit smoking. Itís very hard to quit tobacco but itís easy to never try it. If peer pressure is what gets some kids to start, why hasnít that peer pressure moved in the opposite direction to pressure peers to not start smoking. This goes for vaping as well since itís still the addictive chemical found in tobacco? It is disappointing to see young celebrities, followed by legions of even younger fans, take up smoking.

Its pretty insane that people today choose to smoke knowing full well the health risks involved.

Yet, plenty do it. Young women do it because they think it makes them look "cool" and it dulls their appetite for food helping them stay thin. One woman I know is now battling a form of cancer that may be connected to her life long habit of smoking. Another that I went to school with died a couple of years ago from lung cancer.

I think there are occupations where people smoke to dull the cold or the smell that comes along with their occupation.

Our state has a great smoking cessation program in place thanks to the court settlement with big tobacco. Its a pity more aren't taking advantage of it.

If you've read a book on the History of Tobacco, the big culprit in all this was Christopher Columbus and the Native American Indians.

Up to Columbus' discovery of America it was inconceivable for Europeans to think of people putting smoke into their lungs. Columbus saw something extremely strange when he arrived, seeing Native American people passing around the peace pipe, smoking, wondering what the beneficial effects of it were. So, on his return to Spain he took back a great quantity of tobacco for research purposes. What were the health benefits, if any.

We forget that Tobacco is an herb, which does have some "health benefits", but not in the form of smoking it. It can certainly act to curb your appetite. When Native American Indians had a bad crop one year they'd smoke and smoke and smoke until next successful crop. It can also be a stress reliever. Packs of cigarettes were given freely to our soldiers in WWII to relieve the stress of not knowing if they'd be alive tomorrow or the next day.

At first, in Europe, tobacco was only going to be used for medicinal purposes, but what happened? The pleasure principle took over, just like with marijuana. By the end of the 17th century there's not a country in the world that wasn't effected by tobacco. It grew at lightning speed!

France was the first to tax tobacco, and Napoleon actually encourage people to smoke, as more smokers, more tax income, which he used to finance his Napoleonic Wars.

England took to tobacco like ducks to water, and became the heaviest smokers in the world, unbelievably today, they'd send their school age children to school with a pipe tamped with tobacco, which they'd smoke with their teachers. England tried to grow tobacco in England but it was a very poor quality, so they began to covet the tobacco fields in Virginia, and were mainly interested in America to feed their tobacco addictions.

Washington and Jeffferson were tobacco farmers and they certainly weren't about to surrender their properties to the British. They were going to fight to the bloody end. Benjamin Franklin was sent to Paris to meet with the bankers to help fund the overthrow of the British, and they demanded 5 million pounds of tobacco as collateral for the loan. Without that loan, would we still be under British rule?

One day, tobacco will follow the same route as marijuana, it will be revisited for its medicinal value. It's been talked about and talked about, over the years, a nicotine pill, which our tobacco companies, naturally, would be opposed to. And can one drink it? Native Americans in South America were noted for drinking it, seeping it like tea leaves, but they'd make it so strong it would trigger hallucinations. And no smoke going into their lungs!

I guess I got carried away here, and I apologize for going off-topic here. I have COPD and I still smoke a half pack a day and I'm not quitting. Once you have COPD, it's like having AIDS, no reversal. My 80YO Aunt had emphysema, and she quit for a year, thinking there'd be an improvement in her lung capacity, and when she found out there was no improvement, she took up smoking again. Which mystifies those that see someone with COPD/emphysema sneaking a smoke now and then.

Cigarettes are a good investment. I know a few smokers who died before Social Security age. Imagine what they saved in retirement costs. And in early times a pack cost less than a dollar.

Last edited by pvande55; 05-18-2018 at 04:03 AM..
Reason: Add word

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